THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. YAKAN LABAK, ET AL., DEFENDANTS. YAKAN LABAK, YAKAN ABDULA, YAKAN AMANG, YAKAN BUSLOT AND YAKAN IMAM MAALIM, DEFENDANT…

People versus Labak

The Case

This is a criminal case for murder. The People of the Philippines prosecuted Yakan Labak, Yakan Abdula, Yakan Amang, Yakan Buslot, and Yakan Imam Maalim for the killing of Jose Atilano, the general manager of the American Rubber Company, who was shot in an ambush on a company road in Basilan City. A sixth accused, Yakan Abdul, was acquitted below and does not figure among the appellants. The case matters to a reviewee because it gathers in one decision the classic battlegrounds of criminal review: the credibility of extrajudicial confessions allegedly wrung out by force, the weight of eyewitness identification, the proof of conspiracy and the rule that the act of one conspirator is the act of all, and the treatment of aggravating circumstances that arise from a single set of facts.

Procedural History

The six accused were charged with murder in the Court of First Instance of Basilan City. After trial, that court acquitted Abdul for insufficiency of evidence but convicted the other five. Against the five it appreciated the aggravating circumstance of uninhabited place and by a band, offset by the mitigating circumstance of lack of instruction, and sentenced each to life imprisonment, to indemnify the heirs of the victim jointly and severally in the amount of 3,000 pesos, without subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay proportionate costs. The five convicted accused appealed to the Supreme Court, which decided the case at the end of October 1960.

Facts

At six in the morning of November 18, 1953, a single engine plane of the American Rubber Company took off from Zamboanga City with pilot Severo Viloria and Jose Atilano as lone passenger, landing thirty minutes later at the Buli-Buli Airstrip in Basilan City. A company jeep driven by Estanislao Falcasantos arrived to fetch them, with Manuel San Luis and Jose Fermin, Junior, at the back. Atilano sat in front beside the driver. As the jeep climbed an incline toward the company logging camp, the passengers saw a man at the right side of the road pointing a gun at them. Atilano called his companions' attention to the armed man. The jeep was moving slowly uphill. As the armed man approached, the passengers at the back jumped out, and hardly had they leaped when they heard firing and Atilano's cry of pain.

Fermin, about eight meters away when the shot was fired, recognized the gunman as one he used to see loitering around the company garage and sawmill. He hid, then ran to the camp and reported the ambuscade to the superintendent. Returning with a nurse and security guards, they found Falcasantos trying to aid Atilano, who expired fifteen minutes later. Atilano's wrist watch and a package of medicine worth 47 pesos and 80 centavos were missing. The autopsy showed a shotgun wound penetrating the right anterior lumbar area and perforating the small intestines, stomach, liver, and heart, with pellets lodged in the chest, and severe hemorrhage.

The investigation by Lieutenant Alfredo Caoili of the Philippine Constabulary revealed that Labak had been hanging suspiciously around the company camp since his application for employment was refused. Labak admitted taking part in the ambush and named Buslot, Abdula, and Amang. After Labak repeated his admission in their presence, Abdula confessed that he was the triggerman and Amang affirmed their complicity. Labak disclosed that Buslot persuaded him to join by offering a share in the 200 peso reward which Imam Maalim was to give Buslot for the murder. Through Abdula's confession the fatal paltik shotgun was recovered from Abdul, and two barongs were taken from Amang and Abdul. Labak, Abdula, Amang, and Abdul gave extrajudicial confessions before Lieutenant Caoili, sworn to before Judge Doroteo de Guzman of the Basilan Municipal Court. Imam Maalim, arrested later, gave a sworn statement before City Fiscal Geronimo de la Pena.

Issues

• Whether or not the prosecution failed to prove the motive for the murder.
• Whether or not the extrajudicial confessions of the appellants were obtained through force and intimidation and are therefore inadmissible.
• Whether or not the guilt of the appellants, including Buslot who made no confession, was proven beyond reasonable doubt.
• Whether or not the lower court correctly appreciated the aggravating circumstances and fixed the civil indemnity.

Applicable Provisions

The decision applies the rule on conspiracy in Article 17 of the Revised Penal Code, which provides:

Conspiracy exists when two or more persons come to an agreement concerning the commission of a felony and decide to commit it.

This is the provision that makes the act of one conspirator the act of all, and it is the reason Buslot is liable although he never confessed.

The decision also applies the rule on the indivisibility of penalties in Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code, which provides:

When a single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies, or when an offense is a necessary means for committing the other, the penalty for the most serious crime shall be imposed, the same to be applied in its maximum period.

This bears on the Court's treatment of the aggravating circumstances of uninhabited place and by a band as a single circumstance, not two.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that motive was sufficiently shown. Imam Maalim's sworn statement revealed that two Moros, Sandung and Mustaman, promised him 300 pesos to kill Atilano; that through threats they persuaded him to propose the murder to the others; and that Labak, Abdula, Amang, and Buslot agreed to kill Atilano for 200 pesos, leaving 100 pesos as Maalim's reward. Whatever grudge Maalim bore against the company was but an additional motive, and the others were impelled by gain.

On the second issue, the Court rejected the claim of maltreatment. None of the appellants presented a medical certificate, the tiny scars on Labak's ear and leg were not consistent with the brutality claimed, and the other appellants bore no marks of abuse. The Court found it unbelievable that they were maltreated before being questioned rather than after refusing to confess, and, there being no motive for Lieutenant Caoili and the soldiers to abuse them, applied the presumption that they performed their duties regularly and lawfully. The appellants never revealed the alleged maltreatment to Judge de Guzman when they swore to their confessions, and the acquitted Abdul's short statement, admitting only that he handed over the paltik shotgun, showed the tale of torture to be a concoction. Imam Maalim could not have been maltreated by the soldiers because they never investigated him, and Fiscal de la Pena denied threatening him.

On the third issue, the Court held that guilt was proven beyond reasonable doubt. Three eyewitnesses, Fermin, San Luis, and Falcasantos, saw Abdula shoot Atilano with the paltik shotgun and unerringly picked him out in the courtroom. Fermin's relationship to the victim did not detract from his credibility because he was corroborated by eyewitnesses whose bias was not shown. Labak's alibi was unconvincing, and the recovery of the murder weapon and the barongs from Abdul, to whom they were traced through Abdula's confession, made the claim of torture inconceivable. As to Buslot, although he made no confession, he was positively identified by Falcasantos as one of the armed men with Abdula, and both Amang and Labak declared in their confessions that Buslot hacked Atilano after Abdula shot him, which found support in the incised wound on the victim.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that conspiracy having been clearly established, the act of one is attributable to all, and that the lower court correctly considered as only one aggravating circumstance the fact that the crime was committed in an uninhabited place and by a band. The Court, however, raised the indemnity to the heirs to 6,000 pesos.

Doctrine

First, once conspiracy is established, the act of one conspirator is the act of all, and each is liable for the felony as if he had personally performed every act of execution. Second, a confession is not rendered inadmissible by a bare claim of force and intimidation where the claim is uncorroborated by medical evidence, is belied by the physical condition of the accused, and was never brought to the attention of the judge before whom the confession was sworn; in such a case the presumption of regular performance of official duty prevails. Third, where the aggravating circumstances of uninhabited place and by a band arise from the same set of facts, they are appreciated as a single aggravating circumstance. Fourth, the civil indemnity for death is fixed by the Court and may be raised on appeal even as the conviction is affirmed.

Disposition

The appealed decision was affirmed with modification, raising the indemnity to the heirs of the victim to 6,000 pesos, with costs against the appellants.

Remember This

Memorize the line that conspiracy makes the act of one the act of all, so that even Buslot, who never confessed, was convicted on the strength of his co-conspirators' confessions and the eyewitness identification. Examiners use this case to test the presumption of regularity in the conduct of official investigations against a bare claim of torture, and to test whether a candidate knows that uninhabited place and by a band, arising from one set of facts, count as only one aggravating circumstance.